320 



BONE. 



grateful for favours conferred, and never forgets the 

 m>t benefit ; and hence the discovery, that from 

 twenty to twenty-five bushels stimulate just as well 

 as the original quantity. Such, in fact, is now the 

 fji-iiii al practice, and it is further considered a good 

 plan to deposit in drills or furrows common manure 

 tirst, and then spread a sprinkling of bones on the 

 top. In this \viiy there is action and reaction, and 

 the fermentation natural to the one article affects 

 the other favourably, by bringing its latent virtues 

 sooner into play. In some parts of England two 

 quarters per acre, or sixteen bushels, is considered 

 sufficient, and a writer in the Mark Lane Express 

 strongly recommends mixing crushed bones with 

 coal ashes passed through a riddle, that the finer 

 parts may be taken, and the rougher rejected. 

 From all this, it is plain that extreme portability is 

 the leading virtue of bone manure, and there can 

 be no doubt that it is on the strength of this quality 

 chiefly that so many upland hills and steeps in al- 

 most every county in Scotland, previously bare 

 even of blades, have been reclaimed almost from a 

 state of nature to a state of great and growing 

 fertility vastly to the augmentation of the agri- 

 cultural wealth and resources of the country." 



Bones first came to be used as a manure, around 

 Hull, so far back as thirty or thirty-five years ago, 

 but their use did not spread into Scotland till about 

 1825. In Yorkshire and Lincolnshire they are 

 most extensively used. 



The Bone-breaking machine consists of two rol- 

 lers grooved and indented, and with pinions on 

 their ends, by which they may be moved either by 

 animals, water, or steam power. The surfaces 

 of the rollers are filled with indentations and strong 

 teeth, which penetrate and break the bones to 

 pieces. This is accomplished by employing sepa- 

 rate cast-iron wheels, placed side by side upon an 

 axis, to compose the rollers; the wheels have coarse 

 teeth, similar to those of a saw or ratchet wheel ; 

 each wheel of the lower roller is an inch thick, and 

 they are placed at distances of an inch and a half 

 asunder, having circles of hard wood or iron placed 

 between them. The bones which have passed 

 through the rollers slide down an inclined board, 

 and collect at the bottom in a heap. They are 

 then passed through the rollers a second time, 

 which are screwed tighter in order to pulverize 

 them more effectually. 



In chemistry, bones in a cakined state are used 

 in the manufactory of ivory black, and in the puri- 

 fication of sugar, &c. In 1811, M. Figuier of 

 Montpellier, discovered that animal charcoal or 

 calcined bones blanched vinegar and wines with 

 much more energy than vegetable charcoal, and in 

 1812 M. Derosnes proposed to employ it in the 

 purification of syrups and sugar refining, since 

 which it has been extensively used, bone charcoal 

 being found more powerful than wood charcoal for 

 that purpose. The calcination of bones is effected 

 either by heating them in a retort similar to that 

 in which coal is decomposed in the gas-works, or 

 in small pots piled up in a kiln. 



BONE, HENRY, R. A., an eminent enamel 

 painter, was the son of a cabinet chair-maker, at 

 Truro, in Cornwall, and was born in that town on 

 the 6th of February, 1755. When twelve years 

 old, his parents removed to Plymouth, where, in 

 conseqgence of his having copied a set of playing 

 cards, which were shown to Mr Cookworthy, then 

 carrying on business as a china manufacturer, who 

 considered that they evinced much talent, he was 



bound apprentice to that gentleman ; and subse- 

 quently, on the factory being removed to Bristol, 

 he there completed the term of his apprenticeship 

 in the year 1778. Although the hours of employ- 

 ment in the factory were from six in the morning, 

 until six at night, he found sullicient time to prac- 

 tise drawing, by copying prints, and such other 

 matters of art as fell within his reach, though the 

 purchase of them was a serious consideration, his 

 only income being from a small allowance made to 

 him by his master for superintending the labours of 

 his fellow-apprentices, and from small sums received 

 for working after the regular hours at the fac- 

 tory. In 1779, on the failure of the Bristol esta- 

 blishment, where he had continued to be employed 

 after the expiration of his apprenticeship, lie re- 

 moved to London. The first occupation in which 

 he engaged was that of enamel painting for watch- 

 cases, shirt buttons, brooches, pins, lockets, &c., 

 as well as device painting in hair, as it was terim <1 ; 

 and so great was the demand for such articles, that 

 he was almost exclusively employed for Messrs 

 Handle, Jackson, and White, in Paternoster Row, 

 then carrying on a large export trade. The device- 

 painting beginning to fail in its attraction, Mr Bone 

 determined to hazard an effort to carry enamel 

 painting, both in size and power, far beyond the 

 limit to which it had heretofore been confined. 

 Accordingly, his first consideration was to simplify 

 the several colours then in use, and to endeavour 

 to reduce them to as few in number as possible, 

 and to render them, together with the necessary 

 fluxes and enamels, of one uniform consistency as 

 to fusion, expansion, and contraction. This deter- 

 mination, as to the simplification of the colours, arose 

 from the knowledge that, as then practised, enamel 

 painting was fettered by rules established by ignorant 

 practitioners, rendering it necessary that the artist 

 should first mix upon his pallette every tint he in- 

 tended to use; whereas the opinion of Mr Bone was, 

 that the same principles applied to enamel as to any 

 other species of painting, and that, therefore, the 

 main point to be considered was, how, with the 

 eye of an artist, to combine the simple elementary 

 colours, so as to produce the harmony, richness, 

 and power attained by the most eminent painters 

 in oil of the ancient and modern schools. Enter- 

 taining such views of his peculiar calling, it is not 

 to be wondered at, that he at once, having by his 

 ingenuity and perseverance surmounted the obsta- 

 cles that interposed, sprung into notice, and in no 

 long time attained to eminence. Nor were his 

 studies wholly confined to the chemical and experi- 

 mental part of his art; he nightly practised him- 

 self in drawing from plaster casts, and copied in 

 water colour such pictures and drawings as he 

 could obtain, and from which he thought he could 

 derive advantage. 



The first attempt of the artist in enamel portrait 

 was a picture of his wife, a descendant of Philip 

 Vandermeulen, battle painter to William III., and 

 to whom he was married in 1779. This picture, 

 on its exhibition at the royal academy in 1780, 

 attracted much notice from its then unusual size, 

 being about two inches and a half in height, the 

 common size of enamels being seldom more than 

 that of a half-crown piece. Two years after he 

 executed a portrait of himself, which was also ex- 

 hibited at Somerset House. 



Through the introduction of a friend he became 

 I acquainted with Dr Walcot, then prominently 

 i known as Peter Pindar, by whose advice he wholly 





